The impact on firms of ICT skill-supply strategies: an Anglo-German comparison

Hilary Steedman, Karin Wagner and Jim Foreman

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper compares the supply of specialist ICT skills in Britain and Germany from higher education and from apprenticeship and assesses the relative impact on companies in the two countries. In contrast to Britain, where numbers of ICT graduates have expanded rapidly, the supply of university graduates in Germany has not increased. Combined with the constraints of the German occupational model of work organization, it is concluded that this failure of supply may have contributed to slower growth of ICT employment in Germany. At the same time, German firms have turned to a newly developed model of apprenticeship to supply routine technical ICT skills. This strategy contrasts with British firms which recruit from a wide range of graduate specialisms and invest more heavily in graduate training. Probably in part as a consequence, apprenticeship in ICT occupations in Britain has failed to develop.

JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 89 pages
Date: 2003-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:20042

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